


The Penned Hart

by TextualDeviance



Series: The Raven and the Dove [45]
Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Babies, Breastfeeding, F/M, M/M, Reproductive Rights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 07:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4426400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TextualDeviance/pseuds/TextualDeviance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A chance meeting at Ecbert's villa leads to an intimate conversation between Athelstan and Judith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Penned Hart

**Author's Note:**

> Set during early 3x03 (pre-bath-scene)

The last thing Athelstan expected to see while passing through this room of the villa was Judith's bared breast.

"Oh! I beg your pardon, my lady," he said quickly, looking down and attempting to scurry away.

"It is nothing, Athelstan. I was actually just finishing feeding my son." Handing the now-sleepy infant back to one of his nurses, she tucked away the breast in question and re-fastened her bodice. "Please stay."

He hesitated at the door. It wasn't as if he'd never seen such things before. He'd seen it constantly, in fact, given the open nature of the mothers of the North, to say nothing of the steady stream of Ragnar's offspring that Aslaug kept birthing and feeding. Yet with this woman, in this situation, it seemed incongruous and embarrassing—for him, if not, apparently, for her. "I have—“ he began.

"Please." Her voice took on a shade of need.

"All right, then," he finally said. He turned back, and strode up to a chair opposite her, perching on its edge. "How are you this morning?" he asked by way of making polite—and subject-changing—conversation.

"I am well, thank you. My son has begun sleeping through the night of late, so I am getting a lot more rest than I have recently. The late-night demands for a meal were beginning to do my head in."

Athelstan frowned in confusion.

She noticed, and smiled. "Are you surprised that I feed him myself?"

"I was not going to say anything, but . . ."

"I have a wet nurse available," she said. "She takes him sometimes when I am too exhausted or otherwise occupied. But yes, I prefer to keep him whenever possible."

"It is the same with most of the high-born women of the North, as they are able," he said. "Our Queen—Aslaug, King Ragnar's wife—has four sons and has fed them all of her own body. I admit that my understanding of such customs in my homeland is weak, as I was cloistered at a young age, but I had always believed that wet nurses and governesses take over after a short while."

"To avoid a noble lady having to do such rustic things?" She grinned.

"Well . . ." He shrugged, helpless.

"No. You are right. It is the custom. I had a wet nurse myself as a babe. I have been encouraged by the women of this household to do so with my son, too, but I do not wish to. He is beginning to eat other things these days, but he is of my body and I choose to give him as much of it as he still requires." She looked away, a wistful expression on her face. "There is more than that, however." At his nod, she continued. "Part of the reason they want me to stop feeding him is that they want me to produce another heir as soon as possible."

"Why would feeding him matter for that?" He considered that Aethelwulf might not want to lie with his wife while her breasts were still swollen with milk. He himself didn't think such a thing would deter him--it certainly never deterred Ragnar from pursuing Aslaug. Were he to lie with a woman who was in such a state, he might even find it interesting. He found himself staring at Judith's refastened bodice, and then rebuked himself for the rudeness. He blinked and looked to the wall behind her, trying to clear his mind of such images.

"I have been told little about these things, I am afraid, but what I do know is that it is harder to conceive a new child while a previous one is still on the breast. A wise woman in my father's court once told me that it was God's way of ensuring that each child got the care it needed before another came along to start issuing demands."

"I see." He didn't, quite, though he did recall that each of Aslaug’s young sons, save Ivar, were a year or two younger than the previous despite their parents’ frequent coupling even during their infancy. He also wondered why Lagertha hadn't mentioned this thing to him when she explained the mysteries of women's bodies and the making of children to him so many years ago. He made a mental note to ask her for clarification the next time they were together—if they had time between the language lessons he'd been giving her. Ecbert had been pressing her for some alone time, and she wanted to better understand him, she had said, to ensure that he wasn't being duplicitous.

"But look at me," Judith said suddenly, perhaps noticing the tension in his body and expression. "Here I am boring you with these womanly things—and probably disturbing you as well."

He shook his head. "I am not disturbed."

"No? I guess perhaps you would not be by now." She cocked her head. "It has been years since you were a monk at Lindisfarne, at least."

"It has, my lady."

"You must surely be quite familiar with women by now, after so much time with the Northmen and their . . . free ways."

 _Not as familiar as you might think._ "Somewhat," he said noncommittally. "In any case, I do not find women frightening or foreign, at least not for many years, and the courses of nature even less so now. I have even been present at a birth."

"Have you?" Judith looked delighted. "How did that come about?"

He smiled with the memory. "I was not in the room for very long, but I was asked to run an errand for our queen while she was laboring with her second son. By the time I had returned, she was bringing him forth. It was . . . strange, I admit. Yet I did not find it upsetting. I was more upset at her first son's birth, when all I knew was the screams I could hear." He left unspoken his other experience; Lagertha's loss of her own pregnancy was her story to tell, not his.

"I admit I found my son's birth frightening at first. I had been told so little about what to expect that I imagined some savage little badger or something trying to claw its way out of my body. I will not say that the experience was pleasant, but it was at least less horrifying than I had feared."

"It is a pity you were not better informed," he said kindly. "This—educating children about the workings of the body—is one thing that I strongly believe the pagans do better than you."

"Than us, you mean?" Her eyes narrowed. "Or do you no longer consider yourself a man of our people: a Saxon; a Christian?"

A breath stuck in his chest. It seemed it would always return to this question somehow. People would always expect him to pledge loyalty to one side or the other. And he would always question whether he simply should, and leave the torture of his mind behind for good. "It is . . . not that simple," he said. "I am Christian, but also pagan. I am both and neither. I cannot say exactly with which people I should be able to declare myself truly an 'us.'"

"Perhaps you do not need to declare it on the basis of a people." Her eyes locked onto his, and she smiled warmly. "Perhaps you need only declare it with one person." She leaned toward him, almost imperceptibly, and her breathing quickened.

A wash of discomfort ran through him, and he felt himself involuntarily pulling back from her. She was right, of course: he did think of himself as an 'us' with one person. However, Judith's manner was clearly telling him she wanted him to consider her that person; he hadn't the heart, nor the courage, to tell her that that surely was not the case. "Perhaps," he said diplomatically, "that may someday prove to be the answer. For now, I content myself with having a foot on both sides of the sea."

"Oh. I see," she said. For a moment, her eyes seemed to look beyond him, and she appeared to shrink in on herself. A heartbeat ago, she was making him feel crowded. Now, he felt a surge of pity. She was, he realized, almost as cloistered as he himself had been at Lindisfarne. First sheltered within her father's walls like a prize pet, she was then effectively sold to another man as part of a political alliance, and pushed into bearing his children. He wondered whether she had even got closer to the sea than only catching a glimpse of it in the distance on a journey.

Still, the thought of the sea reminded him of the one person with whom he did claim full loyalty and affiliation. Worries about what the man in question was doing now—and the danger he was in—overrode all other feelings.

"Anyway . . ." his gaze lit upon a piece of embroidery next to her. Set aside, he assumed, when her son was brought to her for his feeding. "I should leave you to your stitching," he said.

"My what?" She followed his gaze. "Ah! That. Yes." She reached absentmindedly for the hoop, fingertips tracing over the outlined image there: a golden hart in a garden, surrounded by an iron fence. "I suppose I should work on this again while I have some time. My son's daytime naps are never long; he'll  be wanting me again soon, I imagine."

He stood up. "I will leave you to it, then." Before he turned to go, however, pity got the best of him. "If I might be bold, though . . ."

"Yes?" She looked up at him, big, blue eyes suddenly full of hope again.

"I think you should continue feeding your son as long as you like. You should be free to make such choices about your life—about the uses to which your body is put." He lay a gentle hand on her shoulder, and took some pride and comfort in feeling her relax under the touch. "I am sure King Ecbert can wait a while for another grandchild."


End file.
